On this episode of the Six Five Webcast – The 5G Factor, dive into the recent strategic moves by Alianza, Ericsson, and Nokia that are set to reshape the competitive landscape of the 5G ecosystem by 2025. Host Ron Westfall along with guest, Tom Hollingsworth, explore the implications of these developments and what they signal for the future of 5G and beyond.
Their discussion covers:
- Alianza’s acquisition of Metaswitch from Microsoft and its impact on cloud-native and AI services in the communications industry.
- The role of Ericsson Antenna System in driving antenna evolution and enhancing network capabilities in North America.
- How Nokia is preparing for 6G with its focus on 3GPP Release 20, emphasizing network energy efficiency and 5G-Advanced enhancements.
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Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Hello and welcome everyone to The 5G Factor. I’m Ron Westfall, Research Director here at The Futurum Group. And once again, I’m pleased to have my distinguished colleague, Tom Hollingsworth, the Networking Nerd and Event Lead at Tech Field Day, here joining me for today’s conversation. In fact, I believe we’ve come off a successful string of tech field days to round out the end of the year, Q4 and so forth. And today we’re going to focus on one aspect that the tech field days address and that is the mobility world and specifically the 5G ecosystem, some of the important announcements that have come out over the last couple of weeks. And with that I’d like to say speaking of Tech Field Day, there are more on the horizon. I know we’re getting toward the end of ’24, but in ’25 it’s never too early to start planning. For example, we have Mobility Field Day 13, that’s already pegged for May 7th and 8th. And with that, Tom, I think that’s a great segue. Any thoughts on the upcoming Tech Field Day schedule and what’s going on in 5G?
Tom Hollingsworth: Well, it’s been an exciting time and I know we’re getting down to the end of the year and some people are trying to decide, do I get this announcement out before CES? Do I wait and maybe save it for Mobile World Congress? But the answer is, of course, always there’s going to be news coming out that we’re going to want to cover here and in a lot of other places and Tech Field Day is another great place that we do that. Techfieldday.com is a great place to see what events that we have lined up coming up in 2025. We’re already deep into planning for those and we can’t wait to share more once we get everything nailed down.
Ron Westfall: Outstanding. I couldn’t have put it any better. And with that, let’s dive right into that. We’re looking at in terms of 5G ecosystem and on a slightly different variation, let’s start with Alianza, which has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Metaswitch, at least most of its assets, from Microsoft. Basically the deal’s aimed at advancing the path for CSPs, the communication service providers, to enter the cloud natively and also play a more integral role in the AI services economy. And now with the acquisition, what Alianza is hoping to get is really, first of all, a broader customer base. There’s no harm in that. There weren’t any specific financials attached to the deal, but you could pretty much bet that they got a good deal since Microsoft had already dialed back Azure operators, which included Metaswitch and basically was looking to potentially sell Metaswitch assets at a very deep discount.
But what that means though is good news for Alianza, probably a very good deal taking Metaswitch off of Microsoft’s hand and now they can say they are 19 of the top 20 global operators. So, that in itself, is a coup. They’re quite simply expanding their customer count where it counts the most amongst the operators. And to recap, Alianza is focusing on how CSPs can face the challenges in managing legacy services, for example, voice, side by side with the development and delivery of new capabilities. And what we’re seeing out there in terms of the competitive reality is that when it comes to revenue growth, the telcos are still trying to figure out how can they optimize their role and of course protect their revenue streams, let alone grow them because they have a lot of competition from over the top competition. And the OTT players, the RingCentrals and so forth, let alone Microsoft itself in some circumstances are pretty much not having to obligate themselves to maintain network infrastructure and also other full service capability obligations. And also, there’s not as many regulatory restrictions attached to their services.
So, what’s a telco to do? Well, what Alianza’s portfolio does is help business customers basically manage and administer the full ecosystem of service offerings and eliminate the need to have to integrate lots of different partners and navigate the complexities of integration. That is they have a purpose-built cloud communications platform that does this. And so this allows the operators to come in and say, “Hey, we can not only meet your traditional needs, but we can help you get to the next phase without having to support a traditional telco service alongside a new OTT offering alongside other Microsoft office capabilities and so forth.” So, what this is really doing is streamlining the ability for Alianza to support telcos and basically making their offerings a lot more attractive to businesses. That’s another important thing. It’s focused on businesses so it’s not overreaching the consumer and not having to deal with the margins on the consumer side.
So, to wrap up, okay, why did Alianza acquire Metaswitch? Well, it’s about again, allowing those business customers to simplify how they can have new capabilities that are cloud-based, more software-centric and so forth. And this again, is avoiding what can be characterized as integration quagmires with competing approaches that don’t really bring the full spectrum of capabilities in one neat package. And with that, Tom, what do you see about this deal that jumps out to you?
Tom Hollingsworth: I think this was probably a really good move by Microsoft for the simple reason as you stated, they were really finding themselves into a bit of a quandary because they have what is considered to be one of the premier communications platforms out there, Teams, and they were effectively competing against themselves. And you’re right, the biggest challenge is not getting people to collaborate and communicate. The biggest challenge is getting them to do it in one central location. And when you talk about existing technologies like mobile communications or traditional PSTN type stuff, that’s hard. There’s a reason why everybody has gone the way of the app, whether it’s Teams or WebEx or Zoom or any of the other things. But realistically speaking, we’re talking about those three because those seems to be the ones that the industry has landed on. Microsoft had to look at this idea from Metaswitch and go, “Oh, well this will allow us to integrate these traditional communications forms into Teams.” And then they woke up and realized that that’s not how that worked.
They actually, they really should have called Cisco because Cisco’s had this problem for a long time. There is a marked difference between using WebEx and using traditional phone systems. And while those two have deeper integrations than Metaswitch and Microsoft Teams, it’s still not as seamless as one might hope for. So, like you said, the challenge for companies like Microsoft that really want the user counts but they don’t want to have to maintain the hardware or the infrastructure, is that ultimately what they would really just like for people to do is dump their phone system and go to Teams. And so by getting rid of Metaswitch and giving it to Alianza who has these kinds of infrastructure plays, what they’re allowing Alianza to do is provide a value add for customers that leverage their platform, right? So, think about all of those solutions out there that are like, “Oh, well, if you go with us, you can do cloud-based infrastructure and we can toss in these other things on top of that and provide service for them.” It’s almost like an MSP model.
I think that’s appealing to a lot of folks that want those services, don’t want to move for whatever reason. And I can think of a lot of reasons why you wouldn’t want to move, especially if you’re a traditional kind of business that maybe doesn’t have the capability. Think like a hospital. Hospitals need phones and not just phones for the hospital, they need phones in the patient rooms, right? You want to be able to call, or hospitality is another good example. Do you want to manage that infrastructure? A lot of people will say no. Whereas now, Alianza could drop a box on site to run that information set up for you and then have it managed in the cloud. That’s an easy win for them to get some uplift in their service offerings and increase their average selling price. So, I think that it’s good because it lets the people focus on what they’re good at and not necessarily try to create some of those infamous Jack Welsh synergies that aren’t really there.
Ron Westfall: All excellent points, Tom. And that actually triggered a couple of reminders. Why Alianza? Now, first of all, I think they do have a distinct competitive approach here that is, again, it’s all cloud-based and it’s all focused on enabling telcos to do what you’re just talking about. And I think it’s also they’ve really thought it through because some of the competitive offerings don’t really think through things like, what about fax machines? What about the circuit-based telephones on an elevator? These are things that need to be supported in places like a hospital or any major facility, and this is something that Alianza actually brings to the table. It’s not going to leave you hanging like, oh, here’s an exception. You’re going to have to continue running your traditional implementation in order to support it. So, I think those are important considerations in many of these environments. And yes, I think it’s also important to note that what about Microsoft? I think Tom, you did a great job covering that and also a snapshot of the competitive trade out there. But to be clear, Microsoft is not abandoning the telcos space by any stretch of the imagination.
Yes, they dialed back Azure for operators significantly, and that means that they’re really focused on the platform, but also they emphasize that they’ll be continuing to provide AI services to their telco customers as part of their platform play. So, this is something that I think is, well, it’s a cliche, but benefits both sides in terms of the deal itself. And speaking of, okay, what are some details that are important about a successful 5G service? What are the things that are going to be needed? Well, I think this is an opportunity to take a snapshot of something that we haven’t really talked about for a while specifically, and that’s antennas. Now, antennas I think we all understand are integral to communications and 5G is no exception, but what is going on in the antenna world that is going to make a difference in terms of making just that 5G a better experience for all? I think Ericsson did some important, I think, work here in terms of why they are developing their antennas, investing more significantly in it, not just for North America, but really across the board. But I think we’ll look at some North America examples here to demonstrate what is going on.
Basically it’s having a significant impact in terms of the overall end-end 5G implementation. We hear a lot about how open RAN can be run and how there are these alternatives in terms of DU implementations and DU to RU communications and so forth. But I think what’s important here is that antennas themselves, for example, the Ericsson antenna system is really playing a pivotal role in making 5G more efficient, but also again delivering that better experience. And before looking at North America a bit more, I think it’s important to note that in a recent trial by European top tier CSP, Ericsson antennas helped deliver more than four times the coverage and double the capacity of the previous antenna implementation. So that’s something that nobody’s going to say no to. This is something that I think will translate into production environments and even if they don’t hit those exact same multipliers, anything that approaches fourfold and proven in coverage or doubling capacity is something that I think will certainly drive how the mobile operators will be more adept at delivering 5G services.
And how else is Ericsson making a difference I think is important to note? Basically they had a benchmark evaluation that shows that the Ericsson antennas are demonstrating energy efficiencies that are 7.5% higher with the traffic volume metric on the per kilowatt basis. That’s specifically with the radio output power reduced by over 25% translating into real savings that can be more than 4,700 kilowatts an hour, excuse me, per year per site. So, you multiply that out and as we all know when it comes to implementing a mobile network or any network energy efficiency is just going to be becoming increasingly important, especially as not only operators, but their customers are looking at ways to run AI workloads more efficiently. Certainly when it comes to hybrid AI implementation as well as the telcos themselves supporting say AI inferencing capabilities within their existing assets at the edge of the network.
But I think another thing that’s cool is that Ericsson is supporting a honeycomb radome structure that can result in 49% lower embodied carbon footprint. So that’s reinforcing why Ericsson, and this is something I think they’ve established a reputation for, why they’ve made progress in North America most recently with the AT&T deal coming to the front of the mine. That is they’re simply producing in the field products on the RAN side, but on the antenna side and so forth that are lighter, more energy efficient than the competitive alternatives out there. And they’re not resting on their laurels. What they’re doing is looking ahead is supporting advancements such as remote electrical tilt that uses an R app for remote control that could enable real-time adjustments to antenna patterns that improve naturally the network coverage and capacity based on changing conditions. So that is futuristic, something that you might see in a Blade Runner sequence. But with that, Tom, I know antenna is a relatively mundane subject except for us 5G heads, but for the other folks out there, why is it important that antennas continue their innovation path?
Tom Hollingsworth: Well, here’s a quick question for all of those of you out there who are complaining about whether or not you have really good cell coverage, can I build a cell tower in your backyard? You’re probably sitting there shaking your head very vigorously back and forth, “No.” And that’s one of the issues that a lot of people are concerned about is they want everything to be better, but they don’t want that stuff around them. Call it whatever you will, they’re worried about electromagnetic interference, it’s an unsightly thing to have in your backyard. They’re just not for certain if we need to increase the amount of eyesores in the city landscape. Well, if I can’t build more, I have to do more with what I already have. While you can do a lot with the base station equipment, it’s the antennas themselves that are the broadcast medium for the signal. So how do we fix that? Well, you have to start optimizing the antenna. And if you don’t believe that, just open up any CW&A book by David Coleman and you can learn everything there is to know about antenna radiation patterns and what’s the difference between omni versus a yagi versus a dish versus a patch.
Those all matter on small scale with the access point in your house. You probably think, “Oh, that’s no problem, I’ll just stick it on the wall and it’ll work.” Because sticking it on the wall, those things are optimized for that. But when you’re trying to do things like send a wifi signal down warehouse rack space or something like that, you have to direct it. And that’s what Ericsson is trying to do here. Is they’re trying to create a system that incorporates some of the latest advancements in technology like MIMO and beam efficiency and things like that to better optimize the signals that they have. And that means that they have to spend a lot of time doing the effort on those antenna designs to make them work right. It’s not like you can just stick it up there. I mean, anybody who’s ever tried to set up a home antenna to get broadcast TV now that we’ve gone digital knows how difficult it can be to find just the right placement in just the right part of the house to capture just enough of the signal and that’s for your house. Now imagine trying to scale that to thousands of users on a cell site and trying to do that adjustment.
And oh, by the way, if you ever try to fix anything that requires a bucket truck at the very least and a lot of extra work, and most of the time that you put those things up, they’re up there and they’re locked in place. I like this idea that you’re talking about with the ability to remotely control the antenna tilts. Like for example, let’s say you have a cell tower that’s actually looking over on a sporting arena or a baseball field or something. Well, on any given day I don’t necessarily need to have any coverage on that field because it’s empty, right, but on the days where the people are on the field, I may need to adjust my antenna tilt to give a little bit more coverage down there so that people can upload pictures of their kids hitting a home run to Facebook. These are the kinds of complicated usage patterns that modern engineers are having to try to solve because more than any other time in our history, the populace is mobile and the populace is connected, and when they hit bad coverage areas, they’re going to let you know about it.
Ron Westfall: Yes, and I think that was a very important point you put out there, Tom. That is the NIMBY aspect, not in my backyard. And so, yeah, it becomes all the more, I think, essential to improve the antenna technology. I think a fair amount of attention is paid to improving that coverage, including improving the beam forming, the massive MIMO, TCO and so forth. But I think what’s important here is Erickson is keeping a very close eye on the energy efficiency aspects and that’s always been important, but this, I think, will become increasingly a differentiator for the very reasons you touched on. Is we have to leverage not only the existing assets, but when there are more opportunities to deploy dense small cell sites for example, we have to know what the energy impact is going to be so there’s not going to be any surprises you talked about in terms of coverage because that’s the one thing that we know all operators need to deliver on. It’s just that consistent reliable coverage or it’s just bad for business.
I think this is actually a good topic that segues into looking broader into what to expect in the future. I know we’ve certainly have touched on 5G-Advanced and so forth, and not too much specifically on 6G. However, I think, we can address it and I’ll talk about it a bit more why we have that approach. But for now, let’s look at something that Nokia has spotlighted and I think that’s important. That is 3GPP Release 20, which is really delivering several important improvements to the 5G-Advanced standard that is still unfolding. This is all going to be happening in ’25 naturally. This is all also aligning with what about 6G? Because 5G advance is really 5.5, it’s the bridge between the initial iteration of 5G and ultimately what will become 6G with some consensus that 6G itself probably won’t be more commercially viable until near 2030.
But that aside, I think what’s important about Release 20, it’s that it’s really again, honing in on that network energy efficiency aspect. It’s not just about the antennas and the cell size, but hey, can we make sure that the entire network is actually improving on these energy efficiency metrics? Because sustainability, certainly when it comes to regions like Europe, this is something that’s going to continue driving decision-making of major telcos, whether it’s a Vodafone, a BT, or DT. You get the idea. It’s also going to be impactful, of course, in other regions, but this is something that is going to drive again, what to select in terms of a solution. But what else is on the agenda when it comes to Release 20? Well, again, AI and its cousin ML are basically going to be even more important for how 5G networks are implemented, and that is, in this case, they’re looking at ways to improve measurement predictions.
So again, it’s being more proactive, having more visibility into the overall network and that’s what Release 20 is really looking to do. It’s getting into that holistic ability, having it built into the products so this is something that won’t require too much heavy lifting on the part of the operators or anybody else who needs this information. It’s also, again, not just about the energy, but also being able to predict more accurately potential failures. So, it’s not just okay about rolling a truck out, it’s like, hey, maybe we ultimately won’t need to roll a truck out if we can fix this using existing capabilities that are built into the 5G-Advanced standard and as a result, again, great savings for the operators. But also, it’s again, preparing for the future of Release 20, and that is post quantum cryptography, PQC, which is getting a lot of marketing attention toward the end of ’24 here, but we’ll certainly see more of it in ’25. It’s really about aligning the 3GPP standards to adopting existing protocols on the quantum side as well as algorithms to what could be characterized as PQC ready standards.
So, this is smart thinking, it just can’t take your eye off of this as well, but this is again, a promising improvement across the board, including areas such as cyber security across the mobile network. I think also interestingly is Release 20 is going to offer improvements in non terrestrial network capabilities, particularly on focusing on the specialized use cases of voice communications at very low data rates and also over IoT NTN connections. I think that’s something’s that’s also reiterating what’s going on with RedCap. That is not a headline grabber because most people are thinking about, okay, more enhanced mobile broadband is needed for scaling all these AI intensive use cases and so forth. But on other hand, the reality is there’s a lot of warrant for particularly in the IoT and voice communication, to not have to throw more bandwidth at the capabilities. That is by building this in, it’s really addressing the full, I would say, spectrum of requirements out there and so I think that’s actually pretty interesting that a standard is really putting a focus on this in terms of resources.
Also, I know XR has gone through the hype cycle, hasn’t met many expectations, but when it comes to extended reality, it’s going to have, I think, an increase in play. Whether it’s the enterprises using digital twin technology including enlisting 5G to support the capability. But we are seeing very interesting compelling cases like at construction sites. We need a 3D map of what’s going on with the construction, so what is better than a 5G capable device that can support an AR rendering of an ongoing construction site to make sure things are going in the right direction and so forth? So this is something that I think will have increasing merit and traction. I can go on with more examples, but I’ll stop with sensing because really when it comes to 5G advance, this is an area that, I think, will pick up, I think, more capabilities but also commercial interests because we’re talking about things like augmented and intelligence. That is improving human to machine interactions and certainly 5G or the upcoming 6G standard will be ready to help support this as that quickly evolves. And so I know that was packing a lot in, but Tom, in terms of 5G advance and what’s to expect in ’25 and beyond, what are you looking at?
Tom Hollingsworth: Well, I think it’s interesting to note that we’ve already gone through this cycle once before and anybody who has an iPhone knows what I’m talking about. There was that 3G plus that came out, HSPBA, which was a lot of people called it 3.5G. It was trying to do the same thing and I believe it was actually 3GPP Release Five that did that, so that should tell you how long ago it was. We’re already seeing the need to put more things on there. And don’t get me wrong, post quantum crypto is probably the most important thing because as we have discussed at length over months since we’ve started seeing the final candidates from NIST. The value of post quantum crypto being deployed now is that we can start securing data so that in the future when quantum computers finally hit that magical threshold where they’re able to break RSA encrypted schemes very quickly, you’ve already had a lot of time built up to encrypt the data that you already have.
But I also think that it’s important to understand that this is in a way preparing for that rollout. And this is something that a lot of people really have to understand. Just like when you go to any Rumor site for the latest release of a given handset, it doesn’t feel groundbreaking anymore. Remember everybody used to be on the tips of their tongues of what the next iPhone is going to look like or what the next Galaxy or the Note is going to be like. Now it’s just like, okay, it’s a little bit faster and it has a couple more buttons on it. But you got to think that a lot of that comes down to several of these things are solved problems. It’s working on the software behind the scenes that makes it feel snappier, that gives it more capability. I mean that’s literally the latest iOS release is software functionality behind the scenes. Well, that’s what we’re getting with 5G-Advanced. We’re still running the same 5G, the modem in your phone hasn’t changed at all and likely won’t for several years. It’s using software to drive faster speeds.
I mean, let’s be honest, if you’re sitting in a city center with your phone out, are you really complaining about mobile speeds? Is it not fast enough for you? I can remember a time when I was forced to connect to Wi-Fi to download apps and going to large conferences and my phone just wouldn’t work until I got into the Wi-Fi area and everybody suddenly wasn’t on the towers anymore. And now, unless I’m in a bad coverage area, my phone just works. So do I really need all of this groundbreaking technology and a brand new modem every couple of years and all this stuff, or am I more interested in the other things that are going on like power efficiency? Because that’s one thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that when your phone is struggling to get a good signal from a tower, that’s when it starts chewing through battery. If you find yourself traveling a lot in places where there’s no good coverage, your battery is more likely to be eaten up because the system keeps beaconing for towers that it’s not going to find.
So, by increasing coverage capacity, by making it so that the phone doesn’t have to spend so much time searching for these towers, it actually makes it a whole lot easier and better on your battery life. Which is one of those things like you said in the previous story, antennas are very mundane and so are batteries until you need them, until you need them to be more efficient and more useful. I think that that’s the goal here is to set this up to be efficient because that’s what 5G has really been about. It’s been about efficiency. It’s been about using more commodity hardware and software as opposed to these custom integrations that require basically breaking the system to upgrade it. And now we can roll out some of the advanced features that we’re looking forward to in the next generation of these technologies and maybe give them a little bit of a trial run before we try to implement them so we get all the bugs worked out.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, I think those are excellent points, Tom. And yes, on the quantum front, I think that’s an excellent point. It’s like, oh, quantum breakthroughs can basically tear through an existing encryption scheme, and so what does that mean? It’s like, well, it’s like AI, you want to fight AI, well, you can enlist AI. Same with quantum, you want to counter quantum, well, you enlist quantum. So, I think again, it’s this back to the future aspect here that we can certainly appreciate with the evolution of the mobile standards, particularly when it’s 5G-Advanced or 5G to 6G. And to circle back when I noted, okay, we haven’t really talked a lot about 6G and I think part of it is because 5G itself hasn’t really met a lot of the initial expectations. I think there’s a broad consensus in that.
But I think what’s important to note here is that, yeah, okay, you need to keep an eye on 6G, what’s going on there? But certainly what’s going on with 5G-Advanced, it’s going to be a lot more pertinent and a lot more roadmap I would say aligned. I think what’s interesting is that we’re in some, I guess, you could say conversations are not understanding fully that 5G itself is still not been fully implemented in the market. The last time I looked, I think only one third of the operators who have implemented 5G are at the standalone phase. So, basically, really, the first iteration of 5G was 4.5G you can say. It was a combination of 4G, 5G, or what’s characterized as 5G non-standalone. So, stay tuned. I mean, let’s not really pull the plug on 5G in terms of, oh, it’s gotten stale, so let’s really put more eggs in the 6G basket, even though 5G itself was a commercial disappointment.
Well, I think we will see some breakthroughs that we haven’t really seen yet simply because most of the networks have not reached that standalone implementation phase, which can be called pure 5G. So, I’ll get off the soap box, a bit passionate about that, but I think this is important in terms of how we are looking at the market. We have to keep that very detailed look at what’s going on with 5G itself and what is going to be realistic in terms of to expect in ’25, but also, yes, we have to be prepared for Release 20 and certainly the 5G-Advanced capabilities. And with that, as we are heading into 2025, Tom, any thoughts about what is exciting to you about 2025 that might stand out?
Tom Hollingsworth: Oh, there’s a ton of things out there that are popping off the top of my mind. Of course, we’ve got to see if the AI market continues to accelerate or if people start pulling back their spending as with 5G. They struggle to find an application for it that really meets the investment requirement. I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more companies taking advantage of this bigger bandwidth that’s out there, or maybe even start integrating 5G radios into more IoT devices in sensors so that they have a survivable capability. I mean, we’ve even seen rumors that there could be a MacBook coming out in the next couple of years that has an integrated radio in it, which would be a huge driver for new adoption. Yeah, I get that having an AI algorithm running on your laptop is cool for summarizing your emails and being able to write better. But man, what if your laptop could get online no matter where you are? But that’s just because I’m a hardware nerd, right?
I’m cautiously optimistic that you said it, people are a little disappointed that 5G hasn’t lived up to their lofty expectations. I don’t think it’s been a failure by any stretch of the imagination. I really do appreciate the fact that we’ve just had it rolled out as much as we have. I think it’s just a matter of increasing its reliability, increasing its capabilities as it is today, so that when we get to that future where we move from 5G to 5G-Advanced and eventually to 6G, hopefully by 2030 if the projections are right, that we are sufficiently wowed by the next generation. And who knows, it’s probably going to be Mac OS or Windows where the next version is going to be the last version and we’re just going to call it Mobile G now or whatever. I don’t really know, but I’m glad that they’re continuing to put the work in because there’s always going to be an application out there that needs a little bit more than we’re providing today.
Ron Westfall: Yes, I think those are certainly going to be major factors. AI is going to be a factor no matter what as 5G unfolds in ’25. And that’s certainly on the network side using AI, ML, that is improving the energy efficiency specs, advancing automation across the network itself. But, of course, there’s the GenAI side using those chat bots, natural language processing to improve the experience with the operator, to improve the workforce ability to do field tech troubleshooting and improve coding and so forth. So, all of this is going to, I think, make for a very interesting ’25 and that 5G, I think will actually have a slightly more positive view as the standalone implementations become more broadly implemented and so forth.
And so with that, again, thank you, Tom, for joining 5G Factor. Always welcome your great insights and perspective. And with that, again, I thank everyone for coming on board and listening to us. Again, don’t forget to bookmark us. It’s The 5G Factor. We’re on The Futurum Group website. And with that, everybody have a great 5G and 5G-Advanced day. Good day all.
Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
